


all the wrong choices

by cssd



Series: there will be blood in the water [1]
Category: B.A.P, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Blood Feud, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mutilation, War, honestly this story is way softer than the tags make it sound, past character deaths, written entirely in lapslock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 04:12:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11119668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cssd/pseuds/cssd
Summary: two kingdoms at war, one ruled by a gentle young king and the other by a vengeful one. an ancient blood feud. a chain of revenge killings leading back to the beginnings of it all, ugliness on either side.kim namjoon has inherited a legacy fraught with bloody choices, a nation ready to crumble at the seams, a throne steeped in pain, and a crown he is not sure he is fit to wear. he had a plan and a wealth of good intentions to do right by his people, to end the bloodshed and bring his kingdom peace - and then yoongi was taken from him and it all went to shit.tl;drnamjoon must decide if he can be the king his people need without sacrificing the one person he loves the most in the world.





	all the wrong choices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nevermind (sumiya)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumiya/gifts).



> happy birthday to my amazing, beautiful, brave friend, who has made my life so much brighter in the past year. this is a little late because i'm ridiculous and i messed up, but i love you, you are wonderful. thank you for existing. thank you for being there for me. thank you for everything. i hope you like this. i wanted to have finished the whole thing before your birthday, but i wasn't able to and as it is i'm already late and i wanted to give you part one now.
> 
> (quite a few months ago you said something about wanting to read a story where sugamon were just happy, and this story was born; i'm pretty sure this wasn't what you meant at all.)

a lock of soft dark hair, strands scattering onto the pale wood table like shredded threads of silk.

a thin shirt unfolding from its neat square in seokjin’s careful hands, the worn fabric torn and stiff with old blood. the size of it, almost as though it were woven to fit a child, narrow-shouldered narrow-waisted. the familiar faded blue of it stained dark with red-brown.

a single silver earring, lamplight winking off the metal.

seokjin’s fingers flexing white-knuckled on the drawstring of the pouch. his lovely mouth a hard line. chair legs scrape across the stone as he stands. his eyes are fixed on namjoon where he sits unmoving in his unforgiving high-backed chair at the head of the table.

namjoon’s hands press flat on the polished wood in front of him.

he turns his right hand palm up, curls his fingers. _show me._

he does not want to see. he knows. he _has_ known, since they’d told him who it was who'd taken yoongi captive. kim himchan plays with his food before he eats it, takes trophies, sends little messages. wants them to feel the fury of their loss like a blood haze, blinding. wants namjoon to choke and drown in his rage and grief.

that lock of hair. the single silver earring. the look in seokjin’s normally kind eyes, the violet pouch like a silent threat in his hand, the golden initials embossed into the velvet.

he does not want to see.

“namjoon,” seokjin says. _namjoon._ his voice a warning. not _your majesty._ just his name, just that - just: _namjoon._ like he thinks namjoon needs to be protected from what is to come. “you do not need to do this to yourself.”

“show me,” he says, aloud this time, and the two words are like gravel in his throat.

it's a command. seokjin gives him the barest of nods. leans forward and flips his wrist to upend the contents of the heavy velvet pouch onto the table.

yongsun swears, vicious. to namjoon’s left, hoseok shoves violently away from the table, his chair thudding to the floor as he jolts to his feet. “oh my god,” he moans, backing away, one hand coming up to shield his eyes. “oh my god. no. no.”

“that bastard,” jeongguk breathes, rigid at namjoon’s shoulder. his hand convulses on the hilt of his sword. his voice shakes, steadies. “that _bastard._ i will _shred_ him.”

on the table before them lies a disembodied hand, mottled with cuts and bruises, the sawed through wristbone gleaming white, the flesh of the stump black around it with congealed blood and the unmistakable beginnings of rot. two of the fingers have been bent at unnatural angles. fractured. nausea turns namjoon’s stomach and crawls up his throat, a blur of red crowding in at the edges of his vision. he knows that hand, he _knows_ it, even brutalized beyond recognition he knows it better than he knows his own. knows who it belongs to, knows its touch and its warmth, knows the wiry strength it held. he's memorized the lines of that palm by heart. with his mouth he's mapped that web of veins running blue beneath paper-pale skin. he's kissed those fingers. he's felt them inside him where no one else has or will ever touch him.

he hears jimin say his name as though across a vast distance, the gentleness of it lost in the roar inside namjoon’s head.

the twisting silver-and-gold band yoongi always wears on his right hand shines, taunting him. the matched band around namjoon’s own ring finger is a firebrand against his skin. there is a sharp stabbing pain in his chest that feels like ice cutting into his heart. he cannot bring himself to look away.

his hand. himchan has sent namjoon yoongi’s hand. his right hand, his fighting hand—the hand that has made yoongi into everything he is, the hand that earned yoongi his place at namjoon’s side as first sword of the crown. yoongi’s hand is - _was_ \- yoongi’s singular most valuable weapon, his strength and his skill and his pride -

“there is a letter,” taehyung says softly.

“read it,” namjoon manages, his throat cinching tight around the words, and seokjin gingerly slits the seal and unfolds the parchment, the lines of his face set with anger.

“‘kim namjoon, beggar king of the vale,’” seokjin starts. pauses. around the table namjoon’s council stiffens, anger sparking across their faces. hoseok rights his chair. sits, his back ramrod straight, his jaw clenched, hands folded in front of him. beside him, yongsun reaches over, puts her hand over hoseok’s, as though reassuring him. seokjin’s eyes scan the paper. “‘i think we both know what it is i want, and we both know how the cards lay. i offer you a trade, and a generous one that you would do well to accept: the lowlands and rights to everything they contain in exchange for the life of your lover and the promise of a ceasefire. have byulyi stand down, namjoon. command her forces to retreat. your people are tired and outnumbered. your land is dying. surrender the lowlands, salvage your kingdom and your legacy. you are not a warrior king, namjoon, and you never will be. you and i both know this. you are a scholar, a poet, a thinker. earn back the respect of your people. lay down your arms and end this war.’” seokjin pulls in a deep breath. wets his lips. no one speaks. yoongi’s hand sits at the center of the council like a grotesque trophy, drawing namjoon’s eyes, again and again. the hall is silent, pensive, listening as seokjin reads on, spitting the words out now as though they leave a sour taste in his mouth. “or ignore this message and watch as i take the lowlands regardless. i have the forces and the resources and the advantage; it will happen now or later. your villages will burn. your people will die. and min yoongi, your beloved yoongi-’”

“stop it,” hoseok cuts across seokjin then, abrupt, his voice jarring. “enough - what good is this doing, hyung, just stop it.” he gestures towards namjoon, his hand slashing through the air in a sharp angry movement. “he shouldn't have to hear this.”

namjoon’s voice is a desperate thing, needles working their way up out of his chest, lodging in the back of his throat. _yoongi,_ his heart thuds out, _yoongi - yoongi -_ “no,” he says hoarsely, _no no no,_ and hoseok stills. yongsun’s eyes flit between namjoon and hoseok and seokjin and back. at namjoon’s shoulder: jeongguk, ever-present, ever-vigilant, his fury a roiling, palpable thing. namjoon’s hands are white-knuckled where they clutch the edge of the table. he speaks in fits: “i need to hear it - hyung - seokjin -”

seokjin’s hands fold and unfold the paper. he looks across the table, straight into namjoon’s eyes, and namjoon looks back. there is anger there, though seokjin has not lost his composure, anger and terrible hopelessness and grief, nebulous and knowing. when he speaks again the voice namjoon hears is one he remembers well, deeper than seokjin’s, raspier, crueler. on a throne across the continent sprawls another kingdom, another king, and in his vengeful hands he holds the fate of the man namjoon loves more than life itself. kim himchan’s words unspool now from seokjin’s mouth and writhe through the air to needle into namjoon’s skull and settle there, poisonous, a spasming mess of vipers. “i promise you, i will not make his death pleasant. i do not think it will take much; i rather find he is a lovely fragile thing now i have beaten the fire out of him.’”

each word carves him open. yoongi is a part of him, without yoongi he has nothing, without yoongi he is nothing. himchan has reached into namjoon’s chest and taken his heart, gentle and easy, laid it out bare and raw and bleeding on the ravaged battleground between them.

“‘you have twenty days, kim namjoon. twenty days and then he dies.’

‘signed, kim himchan, king of elydia.’”

\

later, when there is only seokjin there to watch it happen, namjoon allows himself to crack, just a little, bows over in his chair and clutches at his head, fingers catching at fistfuls of his own hair. there is a dormant sob captive somewhere deep inside of him, years of suppressed stress and grief winding in around his lungs and making it hard for him to breathe. he’s lost his parents, his sister, he’s lost - he’s lost everything for the sake of this cursed throne, and now yoongi -

no. he cannot lose yoongi. he will not lose yoongi.

 _he is alive,_ namjoon reminds himself. _he is alive. he is not lost._

 _not yet,_ sings the wretched voice in his head, the words rattling like loose coins in the confines of his skull. _not yet, not yet, not yet._

he feels weak, he always feels so weak, but now he feels stripped bare and vulnerable, his defenses broken down with a battering ram. he feels as though himchan has gutted him carefully and expertly and effortlessly, and he needs - he needs a moment to breathe, to catch ahold of himself and stiffen his spine once more and remember there is no room in his life for this kind of pathetic self-indulgence, not when the responsibility of millions of lives rests on his shoulders.

he’s sent the others away. there is no one namjoon trusts more than the nine (six now, with wheein having decided she was well and truly done with state affairs and the war and all the ugliness of politics and byulyi off fighting namjoon’s ongoing blood wars in the lowlands and - and yoongi - gone) members of his closest council, nobody he cares more about, no one who knows him better. and yet he cannot let them see him this way. not right now. in front of his council and behind closed doors he is himself, but the version of himself that still wears the leaden mantle of king. he is still his royal majesty kim namjoon, king of the vale, still their leader, still the man they look to for strength and guidance. and right now he can feel himself teetering on the verge of falling apart, and he knows that absolutely cannot happen. he cannot afford for that to happen. he is a king, and kings do not get the luxury of falling apart.

but seokjin is different. has always been different, older than namjoon, wiser than him, even-tempered and clever, able to see, always, all sides of the playing field. in front of seokjin, namjoon can allow himself this one stolen moment, this one cheated selfish panicking breath.

jeongguk had been affronted at being sent out, had dragged his heels and argued and put up a fight the way he did any and every time namjoon asked jeongguk to step more than fifteen feet away from him. “hyung, i’m meant to protect you,” he’d snapped, forgetting, as he so often did, to keep up his semblance of respect and formal distance, “how am i supposed to do that if i cannot see you, how am i supposed to know when you’re in danger?” but namjoon had told him there was no chance of anyone making an attempt on his life in this room, not when the only way in and out was the door outside which jeongguk would take up his post, and after all seokjin would be with namjoon, and after a minute or two jeongguk had nodded and bowed stiffly and stalked out. had made sure to slam the heavy doors shut behind him, his disapproval clear. no doubt this very minute he has his men surrounding the council hall, watching for any sign of danger, itching in his skin at having namjoon out of his direct line of sight.

at any other time this knowledge would be reassuring, but now it simply adds to his weariness.

barely twenty days have passed since yoongi was captured. namjoon has felt empty ever since, hollowed out and numb and moving on autopilot, giving commands and making decisions and feeling all the while as though he is outside himself somewhere, caught behind an impenetrable glass wall as the blood war spills on and the kingdom - his kingdom - trudges wearily through it. he is once more a lost frightened child, unexpectedly orphaned and caught beneath the impossible golden weight of the crown, only now the loss of yoongi is a gaping cavity in his chest where his beating heart is meant to be, crippling him.

“hyung,” namjoon mumbles now, raising his head to look at seokjin, “should’ve been you sitting in this awful chair.”

seokjin says, his voice the snap of a whip, “namjoon, i know what you are thinking, but we cannot -”

“it’s yoongi,” namjoon says hoarsely. “i cannot just - i _cannot_ \- you cannot expect me to just leave it.”

“namjoon, listen to me -”

“no, hyung, you listen,” namjoon grits out. “they will kill him. they will torture him and they will kill him and -” he sucks in a ragged breath, swallowing the rest of the sentence as he stands, hands flat on the table. the words cut out of him like bits of barbed wire, tight and bitter and painful. “they will kill him and send me his head like they sent you your wife’s head.”

seokjin flinches.

namjoon squeezes his eyes shut and spins away from seokjin, thinks of yoongi, _his_ yoongi in the hands of the enemy, thinks of proud, fearless yoongi made small and helpless and terrified - _i rather find he is a lovely fragile thing_ \- unable to escape, unable to defend himself. yoongi gravely, irreversibly injured, yoongi in unimaginable pain, yoongi, yoongi, yoongi. something heavy and indescribable is eating namjoon away slow from the inside out; he is sick sick sick with fear and hopeless pointless rage. yoongi was tortured, maimed, somewhere _right now_ yoongi is being hurt, yoongi is suffering, and there is nothing namjoon can do to protect him.

twenty days.

they will have tried to get information out of yoongi and when he would not talk they will have tried to force it out of him, will have driven him to madness. they will have broken him like a toy. namjoon knows this, has the hideous proof of it lying on the table in front of his eyes. yoongi is strong, the strongest person namjoon has ever known, but he is only human - he is only human. and kim himchan - himchan specializes in the art of the slow calculated kill, the breaking of the mind before the breaking of the body.

the carver, they call him, the man who stands at himchan’s side, the one who drives people to madness with his knives, the one who had broken hyejin. the carver. how apt, namjoon thinks.

hyejin had been strong, so very much stronger than namjoon will ever be, and now she is dead. she is dead and namjoon will never see his little sister again, will never again hear her voice, the sound of her laugh, will never again see her smile.

_i have beaten the fire out of him._

“it's yoongi,” namjoon says again, turning back to seokjin. “i have lost my sister to this man already. _your_ wife, hyung, have you forgotten already what he did to her?”

“i have not forgotten,” seokjin says quietly. his gaze is steady. “i will never forget. i loved her. i -” for the first time he wavers, his control slipping by a fraction. the weight of their shared grief hangs between them, the memory of hyejin suddenly exquisitely, horribly alive. the horror of her capture and subsequent death a weeping reopened wound. seokjin’s voice drops to barely above a whisper. “i know what yoongi is to you, namjoon, trust me. but this is bigger than yoongi, bigger than you or me. if yoongi were here he would tell you…” he takes a deep breath, releases it slowly, wearily. for an instant he looks old, worn. “yoongi would tell you to make the right choice.”

\

the right choice. _yoongi would tell you to make the right choice,_ seokjin had said, as though it were that simple. as though namjoon has not already learned the first lesson to ruling a nation at war: there are never any right choices. there are only ever hard choices, and as king he must decide which is the better one, which causes less death, less suffering, less damage. mind over body, head over heart, kingdom over self, duty over love.

duty over love.

he has less than twenty days to decide. twenty days before yoongi is lost forever. there will be no going back after that. nothing more to lose, namjoon thinks. because if yoongi dies - if yoongi dies -

_if yoongi dies -_

\

the sick ward reeks of misery. long rows of narrow cots line each wall, each cot occupied by an ill or wounded person. young apprentices clad in the pale blue and gold of the royal medics flit between the beds, attending to their charges, speaking to each other in even, precise terms. screens section off parts of the long main hall, and several doors lead off to other rooms. the air is heavy and sharp with the scent of herb smoke and strange tonics.

there is a soft sort of commotion when namjoon enters, jeongguk loose-limbed and prowling at his shoulder and a pair of heavily armed guards trailing a respectful distance behind. murmurs ripple through the rows of cots: _the king, the king, the king is come to see us._

the apprentices skitter towards him, anxious, unsure. he waves them off when they bow to him, feeling himself smile a little, tiredly. “please,” he says gently, “do not let me disturb you. i shall not stay long; please do carry on with what you were all doing.”

they do, with some hesitation, though namjoon senses the nervous tension in the room, the trepidation. his parents had been harsh, while they had lived and ruled, and even though a few years have passed since namjoon officially ascended to the throne his people are not quite accustomed to gentleness in their king, are not sure how to react to his more yielding nature if not with fear. 

_you are not a warrior king,_ himchan had said in his letter.

namjoon begins to walk, taking a few careful steps into the room, everything in him drawn to the pain of the wounded, the ill, the dying. some of them call to him, leaning up to see him, to be near to him. he touches their outstretched hands as he passes, feeling his chest squeeze with the weight of it all, trying not to think too hard of the last time he had been here, in the sick ward, his father turned gaunt and frail from illness, brought down from the royal quarters so the healers could use everything they had to make a last ditch attempt at saving his life.

it had been a slow death.

“your majesty,” croaks a young man from a nearby bed. _your majesty,_ the sick ward whispers, echoes, yearns. _your majesty._ the man who had spoken up looks worn, sickly, his face hollow. namjoon flicks his hand to indicate his guards move back and they obey at once as namjoon moves to kneel beside the man’s bed. he does not have to look back to know they've taken up position on either side of the main doors. jeongguk hovers at his back, silent, an arrow notched on a drawn bowstring.

“what is your name?” namjoon asks, quiet. the man - he is young, likely about the same age as namjoon. in another world, another life, namjoon could have been in his place.

the man’s eyes are so very bright, belying the wreck of his body. “ilhoon, your majesty," he says. his voice is strong. he seems to want to speak but then he presses his lips into a thin smile and falls silent. namjoon does not have it in him, not right now, to give anything else. he simply brushes his hand over ilhoon’s forehead, a blessing, the gesture almost maternal, before rising to his feet and moving on. his robes whisper over the cool stone floor. namjoon touches outstretched hands as he goes, offering murmured words of comfort, knowing it is not enough, he is not enough. he is failing his kingdom. he is not fit to wear the crown.

_your people are tired and outnumbered. your land is dying._

it is true, all of it. his people are weary. namjoon - namjoon is weary. weary and lost and so very afraid. even this - seeing this overwhelms him, and this is nothing, this is ordinary ailment. he thinks of the wounded and of the dying and of the many dead on the battlefields, of the reports he receives daily from seokjin’s soldiers, from byulyi out in the lowlands, and knows this is nothing by comparison.

there is a hand on his upper arm, light and gentle. namjoon turns to see wheein standing beside him, her mouth tight, something heavy in her eyes. she takes his hands in her own smaller ones, her touch cool, calming. “come, your majesty,” she says, and namjoon allows himself to be led to one of the doors and into the small room beyond.

the air here is sweet and crisp, soothing somehow by contrast to the oppressive air in the main hall of the ward. there is a desk in one corner, covered in papers and various plants. shelves line one wall, overflowing with herbs and other strange materials that namjoon does not recognize. there is a large jar of what look like live salamanders. beside it is a small wooden box full of a strange black substance, thick and oozing slightly. namjoon rather feels he does not want to know. the floor is carpeted in thick rugs, plush beneath namjoon’s feet, and the walls are covered in lovely handpainted designs and intricate patterns. wheein’s own handiwork, and hoseok’s - both of the jung siblings are artistically talented as well as skilled healers.

wheein sits down, cross-legged, on the floor, and after a moment namjoon joins her. jeongguk stays by the door. wheein nods to him in greeting, and he inclines his head, the tension bleeding from him a little, the lines of his body relaxing. he leans against the doorframe, patient for once, waiting.

wheein has that effect on people. it is why namjoon had found himself coming down here, to the sick ward, a place he has shunned like the plague since the death of his father and the subsequent loss of his mother.

“i heard,” wheein says finally, when namjoon says nothing. “my brother told me, about the letter. about - about yoongi.” yes, namjoon thinks, hoseok would have come down here immediately after the meeting, would have told his sister of the recent grim developments. namjoon is glad he does not need to recount the story himself. the image of yoongi’s mutilated, disembodied hand lying at the center of his council table flashes through namjoon’s mind. he feels, for an instant, dizzy. wheein’s mouth twists, her sweet face hard and angry. “i am sorry.”

namjoon looks away. “jeongguk,” he says evenly, and jeongguk straightens.

“your majesty.”

“will you wait outside, please.”

jeongguk hesitates, his eyes flicking to wheein. then he bows low and steps out into the main hall, shutting the door to wheein’s room carefully behind him. namjoon reaches into the right pocket of his robes, draws out the folded letter. straightens the paper in his hand, smoothing his thumb over the creases. when he looks up, wheein is watching him.

“why are you here, your majesty? it is late, and you should be resting.”

“i cannot sleep like this,” namjoon says, voice low. he scrubs a hand over his eyes. “i cannot stand it -” he breaks off abruptly, shoves to his feet and turns away from wheein’s too-sharp eyes. he needs to gather himself. he did not come here to have a breakdown.

“i can give you a draught that will help you sleep,” wheein offers lightly, and namjoon can hear it in her voice that she knows it is not why he is here.

namjoon paces to the racks of supplies pushed up against the wall. turns back to face her, folding his arms tightly across his chest. she is still sitting, calm, her hands resting on her knees, but there is a steeliness to her expression that he knows all too well.

“read it, wheein, please,” he says, extending his hand, and after a beat of silence she rises reluctantly to her feet to take the letter from him. she holds it between forefinger and thumb as though the paper is filthy and she does not wish to touch it any more than she absolutely must. he watches her read it, her eyes skimming the page. when she looks up at him her face is dark with anger.

“what will you do?”

he shakes his head. paces around her restlessly, needing the mindless movement, needing to do something, anything, with himself. she stands still, letting him circle her room like a caged wolf. “i do not know.” his voice is rough. it hurts to talk, to voice how lost he is.

she says, each word quick and razor-sharp, “i cannot tell you what to decide, i cannot give you the answer you need.”

namjoon laughs, a harsh sound. there is no humor in it. “there are no answers. but i would hear your advice, if you will give it.”

“i have told you,” she bites out. “i will not be a part of your war council. i will not watch as you turn into your father. i will not sit at your table and listen as you send more of my friends into a blood war that means nothing -” her voice rises steadily, and he stops pacing, leaning against the edge of her desk and looking at her narrowly.

“say it, all of it,” namjoon challenges. he is tired of her passive aggressive disapproval, of her tight-lipped anger. he wants her honesty, her rage. he did not come to her for comfort.

she presses her mouth into a thin line and meets his gaze unflinchingly. “you know how i feel about this war,” she says finally. “so much blood shed, and for nothing, over a feud our grandparents began, over something so foolish that most of us alive can barely recall what it was to start with.”

“my sister died for this war,” namjoon mutters. his throats constricts around the words, dry and prickly. hyejin has been dead for years, but he still finds it difficult to speak about her. “and you would have me surrender, you would have me forfeit, admit defeat to the man who had her tortured -” he shuts his eyes for a long moment. “you would have me give up.”

“your sister did not die for this war,” wheein snaps, each word flinty. “she died because your parents were stupid and stubborn and proud. hyejin deserved better.” renewed anger flashes in her eyes. it seems the memory of hyejin is everywhere today, inescapable, the old hurt of her loss turning the question of yoongi all the more painful. how many people will he lose, how many loved ones must he sacrifice?

hyejin, daughter of the crown, namjoon’s little sister, seokjin’s bride, wheein’s dearest friend. wheein and hyejin had been close, as close as sisters might be, as close as hoseok and namjoon still are. her gruesome death had taken so much out of wheein, namjoon knew, had turned her hard-edged and short-tempered. had turned her healer’s heart angry. but he did not want gentleness right now, or he would have gone to hoseok; he wanted to hear wheein’s raw truth as she saw it, uncensored, unapologetic.

hyejin had been so young and bright and so full of life. how fiercely they had all loved her, their golden princess, how valuable she had been to the kingdom, and yet still their parents had chosen the war. the land, the pride, the blood - duty over love, his father had said to namjoon on that nightmare of a day. duty over love. a king must always think of the people before all else. it had seemed selfish and ugly then, though namjoon had tried to understand as he mourned his sister, had tried to tell himself it was noble, that she had died for something bigger than herself.

_the right choice._

but wheein was right. his sister had deserved better. 

wheein’s voice is marginally softer when she speaks again. “you _are_ better, namjoon,” she says, an eerie echo of namjoon’s thoughts. “you are a wiser man than your father ever was. don't make the same mistakes your family has been making for the last century.”

\

he does end up downing one of wheein’s odd concoctions, later, at her insistence. it tastes foul and leaves him feeling dull but it must work because when he falls into his lonely bed that night he is asleep nearly as soon as his head touches the pillow. 

for once, blessedly, there are no dreams.

\

namjoon and hoseok bury yoongi’s hand themselves, in the last hours of the night, under a steadily lightening sky in the small private garden outside of namjoon’s sleeping quarters. namjoon would have done it himself, but he rather felt hoseok deserved to be there if he wished, as yoongi’s closest friend. and something in namjoon had hated the thought of being alone in this moment. it was only right that hoseok be there, at his side as he has always been, that it be the two of them burying the hand that had made yoongi the most formidable swordsman in the kingdom.

the moon is still out, a pale white slice against the dark gray, pinprick stars scattered bright around it. hoseok’s eyes are red. neither of them speak as they dig, and namjoon tries not to think about how much it feels as though he is burying yoongi, as though he is burying his own heart.

when they’ve carved out a shallow little grave beneath the roses that yoongi has always loved so sweetly, namjoon kneels on the dew damp earth beside the hole and opens the small wooden box he had set aside earlier. the hand rests within, wrapped neatly in the bloodstained shirt. the velvet pouch is there as well, containing the lock of yoongi’s hair and the silver earring he likes to wear. namjoon takes the pouch in his hands, tucks it away into the inside breast pocket of his robes. hoseok watches quietly, his eyes dangerously wet, as namjoon unfolds the cloth and carefully lays yoongi’s hand bare.

hoseok makes a small choked noise in the back of his throat.

somehow, though he had known what to expect, seeing it again is worse. namjoon feels - he does not know what he feels. he feels empty. numb.

it takes a bit of force, tugging the ring over the knuckles and off the mangled finger. the hand is very much a dead thing, the skin gone gray and papery. a few of the nails have been pried off, he notices. the muscles of the hand are stiff in death. the flesh is rotting. he tries not to think about it.

he fails.

he slips the ring into the pouch as well, tucks it away once more. then he gets to his feet, movements jerky, stumbles a few feet away and then hunches over on hands and knees onto the soil, his stomach twisting. there is nothing in his stomach, but his eyes are burning and he dry heaves, coughing, spits up bile. he can feel hoseok’s hand on his back, rubbing in circles, his rough voice soothing, “shh, it’s okay, namjoon-ah, it's going to be okay.”

it's not, everything is so very far from okay, but hearing hoseok say it helps anyway, a little.

the dirt is cold and soft beneath his palms. they stay there for a long time, saying nothing to each other. namjoon rocks back on his heels, tipping his head back, blinking rapidly and pulling in lungfuls of chilly morning air. hoseok kneels beside namjoon, mindless of the fact that he's getting dirt all over his clothes. they're both ruining their robes, but neither of them care. hoseok has started to cry soundlessly, head bowed, tears slipping down his cheeks and plinking onto the earth. they're both cracking, namjoon thinks. it's been the three of them together, their entire lives, nearly inseparable, and now yoongi is gone.

“he's not dead,” hoseok says into the aching quiet, as though reassuring himself. “he's not.”

“no,” namjoon whispers, barely audible. 

hoseok looks up at him sharply. takes in a quick shaky breath. “what will you do?”

namjoon shakes his head and stands, slowly, makes his way back to the - the grave, crouches beside it. hoseok trails after him. the sky has gone from dark gray to pale smoky white. dawn is coming.

it seems to namjoon that in this moment nothing else exists. there is only him and hoseok and the overwhelming hurt of yoongi’s absence, the hand like a small forlorn corpse in its little coffin, the hole in the earth a miniature grave.

they look at each other over the little hole, and then namjoon tucks the edges of the cloth back around the hand neatly and slides the lid of the box back into place. it is impossibly light in his hands. he settles the box into the earth, gentle, almost reverent, and then together they nudge the loosened dirt over it, covering it from view. a lone tear lands on the back of namjoon’s hand as they pat the soil into place; he had not realized he was crying.

hoseok stands first, his joints popping as he straightens. he holds out his hand and namjoon takes it, allows hoseok to pull him to his feet. holds on tightly for a heartbeat before letting go.

tonight they mourn. tonight they bury their pain.

they turn their faces to the sky and stand there, the grave at their feet, as above them the sun breaks over the horizon and floods the garden with light.

\

_when it rains, it pours_  
_there will be blood in the water_  
_cold to the core_  
_faith falls hard on our shoulders_

_this is our time_

/

**Author's Note:**

> for reference, though most of this should be obvious or will be made obvious in later chapters:
> 
> > as hyejin was namjoon's sister in this universe, her surname would be kim for the purpose of this story and not ahn.  
> > hoseok and wheein are brother and sister; both of them are healers and run the sick ward in the palace.  
> > yongsun and taehyung are brother and sister; they are namjoon's cousins and since namjoon is married to yoongi and will have no direct heir, the royal line passes automatically through yongsun.  
> > yongsun and hoseok are married; if they have children, the firstborn will inherit the throne after yongsun's death; if not, the line passes to taehyung.  
> > seokjin is the general of the army; byulyi is his second, meaning she is the first commander under him.  
> > jeongguk is the captain of the king's personal guard.  
> > namjoon's complete war council consists of: yongsun, taehyung, seokjin, yoongi, byulyi, hoseok, jimin, jeongguk, and wheein, though wheein has given up her seat against namjoon's wishes and namjoon has not replaced her.  
> > yoongi is the first sword of the crown, an honorary position given to the best proven swordsman in the kingdom and meant to be utilized as the king or queen (in this case, namjoon) sees fit.  
> > [the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqX6GZ2nz88)
> 
>  
> 
> **this story is not complete; there will likely be two or three more parts to it.**


End file.
